He was called "Il Poverello," the little poor man. The religious poverty of Francis is prominent in his rich legacy to the world, but it is often misunderstood. Frequently our reflections on Franciscan poverty are surrounded by a misty-eyed sentimentality that prevents us from being challenged by his life and message.
Two incidents illustrate an important truth regarding Francis and the ideal of poverty. One day the saint was carving a bowl out of a piece of wood when suddenly he tossed it into the fire near where he was sitting. He explained to his companions that the wood was interfering with his contemplation of God, for he found himself preoccupied with carving while trying to pray.
Not long after that episode Francis accepted a large piece of real estate, Mount Alverno, as a gift from a wealthy count. It may seem odd that a person so scrupulous about possessing a wooden bowl would find no objection to acquisition of a valuable tract of property. The rationale, I think, is that the mountain was one of Francis' favorite places of hermitage; it was on Mount Alverno that he experienced his most profound contemplative moments. The gift of land was an object that fostered and nourished his sense of God's presence, whereas the wooden bowl was a distraction to his spiritual life.
There is a lesson here that we should not miss if we are to understand the plight of the world's poor. Voluntary religious poverty is far different in its effects from the poverty lived by millions who find their oppression a hindrance to the experience of divine love and human dignity. We ought not delude ourselves into equanimity over the plight of the poor by conjuring up a romanticized picture of poor people as those fortunate ones who are really happy because of their simple, uncluttered lives. The poor may in fact be especially close to God, but most of the world's poor have little awareness of that. The freely chosen poverty of Francis was a way to God; the socially imposed poverty of many is a way to despair and alienation.
If we study Francis' life, a number of such simple instructions come to mind. As a young man, Francis had a particular distaste for lepers, an attitude shared by many in his society. While riding on horseback one spring morning Francis encountered a leper on the road. His first reaction was to turn his mount the other way, as he had done so often in the past; instead he leapt off his horse and placed some alms into the man's hands. And then he made a dramatic gesture that in later years he would recount as a turning point in his life--he kissed the leper. From that time on Francis would see himself as having a special bond with society's disadvantaged. Francis' poverty was then not simply an ascetical practice but an act of solidarity. This experience of solidarity moved Francis to an appreciation of his shared creaturehood with all elements of the universe. He had a profound sense of community within the created order. He had a marvelously sacramental vision, seeing the image of God evident throughout creation. It was in this outlook that he grounded his reverence for persons.
Francis reminds the activist committed to serving the poor that we need development in areas other than the economic. Just as poverty was not an end in itself for Francis, so too work against poverty cannot be the only task of the Christian. The pursuit of justice is a legitimate part of church mission, but it does not exhaust the church's mission. The gospel calls us to change certain economic systems but it does not stop there, for there is, as Francis knew, the need to change the heart as well.
Kenneth R. Himes, O.F.M., was assistant professor of moral theology at Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C. when this article appeared.
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